Rankingwiki: Current Best Sprinters
- Guardini
- Van Hummel
- Cavendish
- Matthews
- Swift
about 1 year ago
Triki
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The idea
In terms of likelihood to win a race with a flat parcours, we rank the top sprinters by consensus. If you disagree with a ranking, make your argument in the comments. If you agree with a comment, rec it. I’ll try to alter the top 5 according to the popular feeling. Notes could be added to the list, too.
Correction:
Ranking is to be based on current impressiveness. Who has the best form right now? This will drop off the page soon enough, so this way it may change a reasonable amount before that time.
I don't want to tout him too highly because he definitely has a lot to prove still but Guardini should be on the top 5, no?
At least ahead of Benna…he beat Petacchi and Farrar twice last week too. If your doing rankings currently, and who is actually winning, then Guardini deserves a spot
Matthews and Degenkolb probably deserve honorable mentions
by Vlaanderen90 on May 2, 2011 1:16 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Right I put Guardini in at 2 because he just handed AG, TF and AP their asses in Turkey.
I don’t know about putting Degenkolb in yet, comparing him to the others there. Might have to refer to earlier results.
OK, there's Degenkolb.
Actually, Cavendish hasn’t had any wins currently to merit him being top ranked…
Did that.
The difficulty is weighing up current form vs. long term results. I was thinking maybe a scenario where everyone is at peak form and the stakes are high, e.g. a Tour stage should be what we have in mind. That would be ‘long term’.
Short term ranking would be interesting though, like the pop charts or something.
Maybe seeing as this fanshot will only be visible for a limited time, it would be better to do a short term ‘current’ ranking and watch it change.
Perhaps. He was outclassed by Cav at Scheldeprijs.
Bos, McEwen, Hutarovich and Galimzyanov (another new face) all came before Hummel in the race.
Boonen.
Is he completely out of this equation now?
3. Klodi 4. Vino.
But seriously, I agree with your rating.
"I love bike races warm up, warm down, cobbles mountains or flats."
perezbike
.
Also, Bos is out of the Giro...respritory infection.
He would be one to consider for this list…if the course is flat
Perhaps a top 10 list would reflect the current situation a bit "better".
There appear to be many new faces on the sprint scene. Of course we don’t know how strong their palmares will be, but some of the early results shows they are pretty strong currently. Just a suggestion.
Yes ten would be much better.
there’d be more to discuss. It’s just that this fanshot format only gives you 5. Could use a fanpost, but I never use those, and it’s only an experiment.
Cavendsih will win more stages than anyone else at the Tour
Does anyone disagree with this statement?
by William H on May 2, 2011 3:15 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
for one
for two – as every other sprinter says in their post race interviews when succesful – a victory with Cav in the race is still worth to them at least five of one where he isn’t. And the TdF is his recent playground.
Plenty of us do!
Just look on how many VDS teams he is in.
"I love bike races warm up, warm down, cobbles mountains or flats."
perezbike
.
Nope
Cavendish looked terrible before the Tour in 2010. Won four stages.
And he seems to be in a better mental state this year. This may be the last Tour he dominates though. The new generation of sprinters is coming up fast and the competition from his contemporaries is getting stiffer.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
I totally agree to keep it a short term ‘current’ ranking for this season.
At the end, you can sort out the overall by factoring in some sort of formula which can adjust races into their proper levels.
What would Deming do? (+8:00 GMT)
No, still trying to figure out your system.
For one thing, what’s your definition of “current”? How are you ranking one win against another?
If current is last month or so, Petacchi should be ahead of Greipel. Both won a sprint in Turkey, but Petacchi had 4 other top-5 finishes, while Greipel had only 2.
I yearn for the cobbles--Edvald Boasson Hagen
The more the win is from something like a field sprint, the better. I take your point about top 5s, although I wasn’t looking at those. Anything else to add?
majope may be too modest to mention it
but this excellent post of hers last year is full of ideas etc
Yes I remember.
I wasn’t really looking for a solid objective system here, more something like a collecive power poll. The ‘system’ is meant to be ranking through argument.
Possible model for current best printer (monthly updated)
Assign a value to each race/stage (perhaps use VDS)
Establish the sprinter comparison pool (Cav, Ale-Jet, Guradini, Farrar, Hummel etc)
When a sprinter wins a race/sprint, add the race value to the number of sprinters participating in the sprint (from the pool). Add up all these race points together for the month and use that for ranking of the sprinters. For additional granularity give 2nd and 3rd places, say 50% and 20% of max points for each race.
Note: I am not raising my hand to do this.
If we do a whole month, Cav should be on this list.
Scheldeprijs was in April (I had to look that up—I was thinking March for some reason), and is a much bigger race than Eschborn-Frankfurt.
I yearn for the cobbles--Edvald Boasson Hagen
Cav was at Eschborn too and got dropped early...should count against him
Eschborn was a much harder course than Scheldeprijs so its a different category in terms of sprinters, etc.
by Vlaanderen90 on May 3, 2011 12:08 PM EDT up reply actions
That doesn't make sense.
Getting penalized for not getting to the finish in a non-typical sprint course seems counterintuitive if it’s sprint ability we’re trying to rank.
I yearn for the cobbles--Edvald Boasson Hagen
Well, the model should work with any given timeframe including rolling.
I just selected 1 month as its sort of current (as opposed to overall best sprinter) and it should have some amount of sprinter races/stages in it to give us some data to play with.
And I agree Scheldeprijs is bigger than Eschborn-Frankfurt.
Okay,where should Cav be? Actually Degenkolb's win was more important than any Turkey stage too, maybe he should be bumped up.
Guardini did take two stages though, and in field sprints, so I feel he should retain a high position.
Yeah I quite like that.
How about assigning each sprinter a value based on palmares or VDS or CQ score that year, then awarding points proportional to the value of riders beaten in the top 5 or 10, then multiplying by a factor reflecting race importance.
Can't use both a multiplying factor for races and VDS or CQ score
since VDS/CQ score already takes race importance into consideration.
I yearn for the cobbles--Edvald Boasson Hagen
But VDS/CQ don't take strength of field into account, so it's different.
But you could base the rider’s value on their current ranking within the same system instead.
Alternatively, use their palmares so that it differs from VDS/CQ. Quantifying palmares? All time VDS points, or CQ ranking.
So i = importance of race. r = ranking. Cyclist in first place = c1, second = c2, etc. p = points awarded.
p(c1) = i x (1/r(c2) + 1/r(c3) + 1/r(c4) + 1/r(c5))
—> p(cn) = i x (1/r(cn+1) + … + 1/r(c5))
Say the third ranked rider gets beaten by the first ranked, but beats 2nd,4th,5th at a race of importance 100. He gets 10/2 + 10/4 + 10/5 = 95. The winner gets 128. If my arithmetic is right. The rankings are then updated.
Boonen may not want to play in massprints at TdF(or other races) anymore.
“the power struggles scare me. It seems to me that there’s too many crashes,"
Or we could just post a poll every week and people could vote for who they thought was best that week.
See who gets first place at the end of the year by counting number of firsts they were voted each week or just by how many votes they got. It doesn’t have to be rocket science.
Sign seen at entrance of local bike shop, " \o/ spoken here.". - Okay, I made it up, but wouldn't that be cool?
I like "gut feel" system too.
Perhaps they could be combined. First we poll for gut feel and then a smart person runs the numbers aganst a model to see how that match up against the poll.
Ben Swift won a bunch sprint in Romandie
Not the best field, but a World Tour race
But then Guardini beat van Hummel twice in Turkey, and the time van Hummel beat him, he was boxed in and couldn't really contest (yeah yeah, I know positioning is part of sprinting and all that).
No way is van Hummel as fast as Guardini. It’s hard to come up with any foolproof ranking, as quality of wins depend to some extent on the quality of the opposition. A win is a win and all that, but it was very much a B field that van Hummel beat in Drenthe.
Dos cervezas por favor!
I see he had a stage of the Castilla y Leon as well.
But Ventoso was the srongest sprinter in that race.
Just realised that if Degenkolb is up there for the win in Frankfurt,
Matthews podiumed in Frankfurt, but also took the win in more of a straight field sprint in Koln. Should be above Degenkolb.
are you going to show the progression of the ranking as it changes? otherwise a lot of these comments make no sense.
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
Maybe I could explain the reasons in the lines of the fanshot? Limited a bit by the 12345 format.
Or maybe a post in the comments with the new ranking and reasoning when it changes. That way anyone could make them. The content of the fanshot itself could be copied from those.
Here's a new one, down to ten, with Cavendish bumped up a bit again.
1.Guardini Above everyone in Turkey (including big names), which just finished.
2.Van Hummel A stage and a 2nd in Turkey, won everything in Drenthe.
3.Cavendish Took the Scheldeprijs, the biggest recent date for sprinters.
4.Matthews A win in Koln and a podium in Frankfurt.
5.Swift Stage wins in Romandie and Castilla y Leon.
6.Degenkolb Won the technical sprint in Frankfurt.
7.Ventoso The best in Castila y Leon: took two stages.
8.Belletti Stage winner in Turkey, then retired, Giro in mind.
9.Iglinskiy Surprised Petacchi and everyone else in Turkey.
10.Greipel Sprint win from a break in Turkey, and a close second.
That about right, or… what would you change?
Goss
Even though MSR was weeks ago, it’s still rates more then CyL or Turkey.
"It's really who can just push the biggest gear the fastest and the hardest, and I want to be that guy" - GHH
...Kittel needs a spot now...
Probably Bennati should be in there too for his wins in the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Bennati is just like Van Hummel though...
b/c he won 2 sprints but they were against a pretty low field w/ Dumolin and Bouhanni being the only sprinters.
by Vlaanderen90 on May 5, 2011 11:54 AM EDT up reply actions
Engoulvent:
Niveau très bas sur les 2 premières étape des 4 jours de Dunkerque.
(Very low level in the first 2 stages, according to him)
Hm...
TBH all these results are pretty small fry. The best field was in Turkey but we weren’t seeing everyone on form, no way. I didn’t want to just list all the big names without qualification though.
Fortunately come Monday we’ll see (for me) the three top dudes battle it out for higher stakes. A surprise winner would also be welcome, though.
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